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Lynn Helbrecht

Climate change scientists have noted changes in Pacific Northwest hydrology, including reductions in the size of glaciers, less snowpack, and earlier peak stream flow in many rivers. These trends are expected to continue, along with increasing flood size, and decreasing summer low flows. Typically, the size of water-crossing structures like culverts and bridges is based on stream width. As the size of floods increases, so will stream width. WDFW’s web application can help you understand how the stream width at your project site may change in the future -- the 2040s and 2080s. With this information, you can make an informed decision about the design of your new culvert, bridge, or habitat restoration project. Culverts...
Fish and wildlife are at the heart of Washington State’s rich ecological, economic, and cultural heritage. The incredible diversity of species and the habitats that sustain them helps to define Washington’s distinct character and in part reflects the long standing conservation ethic of its citizens – one that has endured the challenges posed by a growing human population, increasing demands for land, water, and other natural resources, and now the very real threat of climate change. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that climate change is already having a significant impact on natural systems across the region, and further changes are likely in the coming decades (CIG 2009; Mote and Salathé 2010)....
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Evaluating Species’ Adaptive Capacity in a Changing Climate: Applications to Natural-Resource Management in the Northwestern U.S.
Natural resource managers are confronted with the pressing challenge to develop conservation plans that address complex ecological and societal needs against the backdrop of a rapidly changing climate. Climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVAs) provide valuable information that helps guide management and conservation actions in this regard. An essential component to CCVAs is understanding adaptive capacity, or the ability of a species to cope with or adjust to climate change. However, adaptive capacity is the least understood and evaluated component of CCVAs. This is largely due to a fundamental need for guidance on how to assess adaptive capacity and incorporate this information into conservation planning...
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WDFW will use funds provided by the NPLCC to integrate climate change impacts and implications into our State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) Revision. We will secure appropriate expertise to review existing research and tools, including products prepared as part of the Pacific Northwest Vulnerability Assessment, and extract and apply information that is relevant to specific components of our SWAP. Our intent is to integrate climate change throughout the SWAP Revision.Our goal for the SWAP is to evaluate climate change threats and actions not as a stand-alone concept but in the context of existing stressors and conservation challenges.
The following report describes a study, conducted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife(WDFW or the Department) from 2014 to 2016, to explore how climate-related changes to streamchannel morphology could be incorporated into the design of water crossing structures such as culverts.The Department received a grant from the North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative (NPLCC)that provided essential support for this work. This report fulfills a required deliverable of that grant.
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